Title:

Sugar and Yeast Reaction

Problem Scenario:

What type of sugar would get the most rise out of yeast, so you could get the best bread or baked good possible.

Broad Question:

What sugar when mixed with yeast and water produces the most volume of carbon dioxide.

Specific Question:

Does type of sugar affect yeast production?

Hypothesis:

Splenda will produce the biggest volume.

Graph of Hypothesis

Variables

Independent Variable:

The type of sugar.

Dependent Variable:

The yeast productivity.

Variables That Need To Be Controlled:

Temperature of water, the amount of yeast and sugar.

Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation

Rising: A period in leavening before baking.
Leavening:A substance used to produce fermentation for dough and batter.
Ferment : Any group of living thing such as yeast, mold, and some bacteria.
Fermentation: A change in the ferment as the yeast enzymes change.

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General Plan

Potential Problems And Solution:

A problem would be that the mixture could spill. So placing the solution farther away from the edge of the table would fix this problem.

Safety Or Environmental Concerns:

Wear protective eye ware in case you get something in your eyes.

Experimental Design

For my experiment I will do the experiment three times. So I get more reliable data for more graphs. I used cubic centimeters to measure my balloons.
There were 3 for each trial but the total amount of subjects is nine. I finished my experiment on 2/21/13. I did my experiment in my living room. I will be comparing the volume of three different sugars Splenda, White sugar and Raw Sugar. I Recorded observations every 15 mins.

Resources and Budget Table

Item	Number needed	Where I will get this	Cost
Splenda	one box	Shaw's	5.29
white sugar	one pound	Walmart	3.49
cane sugar	16oz box	Walmart	4.19
balloons	pack of six	CVS	3.49

Detailed Procedure

1.get three plastic water bottles
2. fill each bottle with one tablespoon of yeast
3. in another bottle put three tablespoons of each kind of sugar.
4. Add 200 ml of water to each bottle water has to be 108 degrees.
5. close up each water and sugar bottle and shake for 15 seconds.
6. add sugar solution to yeast water bottle.
7. shake each bottle again.
8. add a balloon on each water bottle.
9. observe the water bottles for one hour.

Diagram

Photo List

Time Line

January: Created question hypothesis and variables.
February: Completed procedure and timeline 2/1
Began experiment 2/4
March: Experiment complete 2/21
analyse results and data 3/7
write discussion and background 3/15
finished poster 3/22
KMS Science Fair 3/29

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Data Table

(see all raw data below)

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Data Analysis

All Raw Data

trial	Splenda	white sugar	raw sugar
1	300	1075	1400
2	200	1025	1450
3 average	175 225	525 875	975 1275

Graphs

Photos

Results

My results showed that raw sugar had an average volume of 1275 cubic centimeters of carbon dioxide . White sugar came in second with an average volume of 875 cubic centimeters. The least amount of volume produced was Splenda with an average of 225 cubic centimeters.

Conclusion

Does sugar type affect yeast production? I found that sugar type does effect the production of yeast. Raw sugar produced the most volume . White sugar had produced the second biggest amount The smallest volume was Splenda .

Discussion

I was able to answer my experimental question. A pattern in the data would be that raw sugar had the biggest volume and white sugar had the second to biggest volume and Splenda always had the smallest volume.The relationship between my independent variable was strong since there was a reaction each time and with every sugar. During my experiment I had only one problem was that one of the white sugar balloons had a hole, so I had to redo that trial for white sugar. My experiment could be improved so that each bottle has the same amount of sunlight and I could trial different types of sugar such as brown sugar and fruit sugars . People who are bakers would need this information so they can produce a better rising bread . Other key findings is that you need a lot of yeast and sugar to have something happen in a hour since it took about 24 hours with the trial runs I did before I did my actual experiment. My hypothesis was wrong, but I thought that Splenda would act differently with the yeast making a stronger reaction.

Benefit to Community and/or Science

The benefits that come with this project are mostly for baking bread. The carbon dioxide produced by yeast , sugar and water are crucial to baking bread better . Testing the best amount of carbon dioxide produced would allow for bakers to have a reliable yeast reaction . The results from this project could the field of biology in finding new information about fungus. Companies that sell yeast would want to produce a reliable product and could use this data to figure this out.

Background Research

Yeast
Yeast is a single celled fungus .There are over 600 species of yeast. They are many in many things such as in soil ,water , surface of plants and on the skins of animals . Yeast is also used in cheese making and bread making. The typical yeast cell is about the size of a red blood cell which is spherical in shape. Since yeast cells are so small it takes 30 billion yeast cells to make up one gram of bakers yeast which is compressed. For ideal growth, yeast reproduces every two or three hours with the right amount of sugar and water.Yeast takes food from fructose or glucose which is sugar.
White Sugar : White sugar is a crystallized sucrose sugar cane or sugar beets has been washed so that it has a white appearance and does not have a molasses flavor. Sugar either comes from the plant. It is crushed down to a juice and becomes crystallized. Sugar is refined many times so that it gets the whitest appearance. It is then dried before it is packed.
Carbon dioxide: When bread rises it is carbon dioxide trapped inside the bread.The breaking down of sugars produces carbon dioxide.
Raw Sugar: Raw sugar is a sugar that has been minimally processed unlike white sugar. The sugar has a yellowish tint due to the influence of molasses unlike white sugar that has been bleached to have a white appearance.
Splenda: Splenda is an artificial sweetener that has interesting chemical substances. One of the chemical substances is sucralose which is the artificial sweetener part of the Splenda. Sucrose is different from surcalose since sucrose is an all natural substance that comes from sugar beets or sugar cane.

References

"What Is Yeast." What Is Yeast. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2013.
"Yeast." HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Feb. 2013.
Smith, S.E., and O. Wallace. WiseGeek. Conjecture, 18 Dec. 2012. Web. 06 Feb. 2013.
"Fermentation." Fermentation. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Feb. 2013.
Smith, S.E., and Bronwyn Harris. WiseGeek. Conjecture, 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2013
"The Truth About Splenda." The Truth About Splenda. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2013.

Abstract

My project consisted of what type of sugar produced the most volume of carbon dioxide when mixed with yeast and water . I used three types of sugars. They were raw sugar, Splenda ,and white sugar. Some key findings in my experiment were that raw sugar had the biggest volume out of all of the the different types of sugars.White sugar that is bleached sugar is a sugar most people use. Raw sugar is a less handled sugar with bigger granules and has a yellowish tint. Splenda is an artificial sweetener that has a interesting chemical substance. One of the chemical substances is sucralose which is the artificial sweetener part of Splenda. The final results for my experiment was that raw sugar produced the highest average volume of carbon dioxide.